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The Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. 1 (archived PDF)

Air Force Historical Studies Office · 863 pages · text from the file's own layer

This is Volume One of The Army Air Forces in World War II, titled Plans and Early Operations, January 1939 to August 1942, edited by Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cate. The University of Chicago Press first published it in 1948, and the Office of Air Force History reprinted it in 1983. The front matter explains how the AAF historical program was set up during the war. The index covers Pacific, Atlantic and European operations, and nothing in the text concerns unidentified aerial phenomena.

  • p. 48 …This navy of the air is to be expanded until no part of Germany is safe…
  • p. 53 …the Navy, and civilian agencies- the terms “independent,” “separate,” and “united air force” were used interchangeably…
  • p. 60 …n 5 September he used the recent disaster to the Navy’s dirigible Sheizandoah as an…
  • p. 62 …appointed in each of several departments-War, Navy, Commerce- to supervise aviation. The Lampert report, published…
  • p. 71 …delaying them, so that bombardment had been used to cut communications and to interfere with the…
  • p. 86 …One might suppose that Douhet, who “really struck the first blow,” was most useful; his work…
  • p. 88 …the desired support of the War and Navy departments. Only two months after the major submitted…
  • p. 96 …issues between the Army and the Navy over the use of aircraft in coastal defense. Neither…
  • p. 105 …The Navy would provide aircraPt for don, scouting, and patrolling over the sea and for the…
  • p. 107 …both the Army and the Navy for aviation to be used in support of “the Infantry…
  • p. 113 …Japanese Air Power The Japanese air forces, divided into separate army and navy air arms, had…
  • p. 116 …T h e navy, on the other hand, gave closer attention to the training of all…
  • p. 117 …0 single-engine fighter used by both the Japanese army and navy-was widely known to…
  • p. 118 …In comparison with the I 1,000 pilots trained by the US. Army and Navy during…
  • p. 120 …In the war against Ethiopia, 1935-36, Italian bombers gained experience in the use of various…
  • p. 125 …Under this arrangement the Luftwaffe, along with the army and navy, had direct access to the…
  • p. 126 …Goering had successfully opposed the navy's desire for its own separate air arm, and the…
  • p. 131 …The German navy was unable to provide such a guarantee, and, moreover, it lacked necessary equipment…
  • p. 144 …This subject had been under study by the Army arid Navy for more than a decade…
  • p. 146 …even at the expense of speed and useful load. A few months later Air Corps observers…
  • p. 154 …a t best deny us the moral support of the Royal Navy with its shipyards, and…
  • p. 155 …use of a mobile striking force to intercept an enemy approaching by sea. The Navy had…
  • p. 156 …in support of or in lieu of US. Navy forces against hostile fleet^.'^ In each case…
  • p. 162 …announced the arrival on the island of US. Navy At the suggestion of Iceland, the United…
  • p. 170 …AAF and the British, 800 for the US.Navy.’’’ This would total 60,000 aircraft a…
  • p. 175 …T h e planners were concerned only with the mission of the US. Army and Navy…
  • p. 179 …In harmony with the general strategy advocated, US. air forces in the Pacific and Far East…
  • p. 180 …For each command, the mission of the Army (including air forces) and the Navy was described…
  • p. 200 …An alert system was in use twenty-four hours a day, and air operations were carried…
  • p. 206 …Scattered throughout Panama were seven auxiliary airfields, two of which were ready for immediate use, and…
  • p. 218 …Since the required number of planes represented more heavy bombers than were then in use in…
  • p. 224 …regarding the possibility of using fields under construction by the Navy a t Palmyra and Samoa…
  • p. 225 …I 942.* It devel- oped that the Navy could not offer assistance in construction until after…
  • p. 228 …MacArthur had requested permission for emer- gency use of airfields; and negotiations were furthered by conferences…
  • p. 243 …This action lasted about an hour.‘ At its end the Navy had suffered a crushing blow…
  • p. 282 …But the US. Navy had been hard hit at Pearl Harbor, the bal- ance of naval…
  • p. 297 …the Secretary of the Navy as to allocation between the using services. No relative priorities were…
  • p. 305 …Army, Navy, and AAF, and similar representatives of the British services. T h e American members…
  • p. 306 …Joint Intelligence Committee, consisted of the directors of intelligence from the Army, Navy, and AAF, and…
  • p. 316 …So far as the Navy is concerned, Admiral King, as you know, is not only Chief…
  • p. 317 …AAF officers were schooled to avoid use of the term “independent air force,” but in most…
  • p. 326 …after 7 December 1941.T h e Navy was responsible for the general strategic defense of…
  • p. 328 …In the absence of adequate preparations, sirens on police cars were used to warn the people…
  • p. 335 …views between the W a r and Navy departments, and the unsatisfying conjectures advanced by the…
  • p. 410 …ready for use; and it had to be divided between the Army and Navy. On the…
  • p. 424 …Agreements had been reached for the use of Australian bases in the ferrying of heavy 366
  • p. 464 …For inter-island air trans- port, principal reliance was placed on two Navy PBY’s and…
  • p. 489 …In their prior planning, Army and Navy commanders had devoted scant attention to the problems of…
  • p. 495 …Under the joint Army-Navy plan, approximately 15,000 men of the 37th Division were to…
  • p. 497 …R I 1 precipitated the war, the US. Navy had taken a stand against im- mediate…
  • p. 501 …the end he refused to permit the use of the field at Chu- chow. But the…
  • p. 505 …into thickly settled districts, and these were used by the Japanese to justify the subsequent execution…
  • p. 508 …the S010mons.~~ As early as February, the US. Navy had definite indications of an enemy offensive…
  • p. 509 …The Navy’s lack of knowledge of these sightings is unexplained. 4-48
  • p. 514 …T o be sure, it would be impossible to use Carrier Division Five, for the Shokaku…
  • p. 527 …s and B-24's for naval use in long-range search and tracking."' Furthermore, he…
  • p. 529 …D W A R I 1 planes, useful in covering the northern approaches across the Pacific…
  • p. 534 …For the US. forces on Unalaska Island, it represented a loss of 2 2 , 0 0…
  • p. 536 …T h e Japanese navy had sustained its initial defeats, but the army as yet had…
  • p. 588 …Army aircraft might, however, temporarily execute Navy functions in support of or in lieu of Navy…
T H E A R M Y A I R F O R C E S I N W O R L D W A R I 1
had failed to achieve its objectives, and the aerial blitz was gradually
reduced to intermittent attacks which continued throughout the spring
of 1941. The Luftwaffe had sustained its first major defeat and
Britain had been saved, for an invasion was contingent first of all upon
defeat of the RAF.
It will take no credit from the RAF’s outnumbered “few” to sug-
gest that the Luftwaffe had been unprepared for the opportunity
offered in the summer of 1940. Except for a few raids against French
factories, the force had never been employed in a strategic effort of
its own. Trained and equipped for another mission, the Lufnvaffe
lacked a heavily armed long-range bomber capable of carrying large
bomb loads; * it tended to underestimate the bomb weight required
to accomplish its ends; its fighters were not only technically inferior
to the British but were at times misused; and faulty strategic planning
was reflected in a tendency to shift targets before the completion of
a sufficiently prolonged and concentrated effort.
The effect which the Battle of Britain had on subsequent planning
of the German and British air forces was both characteristic and
prophetic. True to their belief in the essentially tactical and support-
ing role of air power, the German army leaders felt that the results
of the Lufnvaffe’s independent effort over Britain vindicated their
position, and with this opinion Hitler seems to have agreed. No in-
sistent demand was made for new and improved types of aircraft, nor
was there any immediate program for increased plane production or
pilot training.35 Organizationally, the Luftwaff e continued to hold its
independent position among the German armed forces, but opera-
tionally it remained an auxiliary arm, For a time the German Air
Force intensified its operations against shipping in the eastern Atlantic
and in the Irish and North seas. The attempted air blockade achieved
a moderate degree of success, but the action of British fighter patrols
and the arming of merchant vessels by mid-1941 appeared to be in-
terfering considerably with Luftwaff e plans. Moreover, intensification
of German air activity on other fronts in 1941 resulted in withdrawal
of much of the Lufnvaffe strength from the west.
For some months, Axis operations in North Africa, the Mediter-
ranean, and eastern Europe received far more attention than did the
dwindling assault on the British Isles, and the Luftwaffe and the RAF
* Its four-engine FW-ZOO(military version of the Focke-Wulf Condor) was em-
ployed almost exclusively in antishipping patrol.
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